A movie review by: Lee Sonogan

(2016) 2h13min / Action, adventure, Sci-fi

The prequel of the first-ever Star Wars ever made. The film is about the Rebel Alliance making a risky move to steal the plans for the Death Star, setting up the epic saga to follow. With a budget of $200 million dollars from Disney, this movie successfully made a little bit over 1 billion at the box office. The second female lead ever in a Star Wars movie.

This is the first Star Wars film in which no one mentions the name ‘Skywalker’. After Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, John Knoll heard about some of the early concepts for new Star Wars movies and was not impressed with any of them. He began developing his idea for this film and started talking it up to his fellow ILM employees, refining the story into a thirty-minute pitch. People at ILM liked it so much that he was encouraged to bring it to Kathleen Kennedy, the new president of Lucasfilm. She loved the pitch and the movie was put into production.

Filmed with digital Arri Alexa 65 cameras using Ultra Panavision 70 lenses. This marks Rogue One the first Star Wars film, as well as the first Disney film since The Black Cauldron (1985), to be shot in the 70mm widescreen film format. The film was shipped to theatres under the name ‘Los Alamos’.

Fun fact, This film confirms through dialogue that the Death Star can travel through hyperspace (though it is never seen entering, within, or emerging from hyperspace).  Then theirs is the fact of the first Star Wars film does not feature a climactic lightsaber duel.  But I can tell you that there’s an origin of the small weakness of the Deathstar from the very first movie.

Watching the first new star wars, I have only watched Rogue One just now. Overall, I was impressed with this new movie than the other one. The story is fast pace and gives you all the imagery you could need. One of my favourite robot sidekicks from all the series. He is sassy and adds perfect timing to the movie. Then theirs the well-performed action scenes and stormtroopers. Acting, Forrest Whitaker does a good job than all the cameos of past Star Wars characters. The ending includes an all-out battle in space and an Imperial planet with the goal of obtaining the Death Star designs. I recommend this film to people who love the Classic Star Wars movies, Sci Fi and anything else you like about the movie that you have seen.

7.2/10